


Solstice Gravity

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Ron Weasley, Christmas Party, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ron needs a date to the Court of Merlin’s Yule Ball, and Dean steps up to the plate.
Relationships: Dean Thomas/Ron Weasley, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21
Collections: Anonymous, Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Solstice Gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CypressSunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/gifts).



> I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it!
> 
> Contains brief references to other ships, mostly canon (including past Dean/Ginny). I didn't think there was enough there to tag any of them. Mild language, alcohol consumption, brief sexual reference

Being a war hero isn’t worth all that much if you can’t use it to get out of the Court of Merlin’s Yule Ball. For the fifth year in a row, Ron’s tried to use it as an excuse; for the fifth year in a row he’s been denied—the ministry is full of war heroes; they can’t all get the exemption. Ron’s tried to argue that not everyone would take the opt-out, and that if everyone would then maybe it’s time to put the tradition aside, but, like every other argument, it’s led nowhere. (Harry would get one, but Harry refuses to even ask because he doesn’t want the privilege if Ron can’t get it, too, and perhaps, Ron thinks as he does every year, they should have just asked together in the first place and Harry could have made it awkward for them and they could have both gotten out of it and had it be over with.)

At least he can afford better dress robes than he could when he was a teenager. It’s a small comfort; he’d go in those horrible old maroon things if it meant he didn’t have to find a date or stay for more than five minutes—well, from his thoughts to the boggart’s ears, as Mum used to say. It’s an easy hypothetical when the problem of not having a date is staring him in the face and not, say, Rita Skeeter plastering him everywhere as an example of a fashion no-no, or people straight-up laughing at him.

And it’s already December. Anyone else left without a date is as desperate as Ron is, and that is a small comfort. Too bad that “anyone else left” seems to be a hypothetical category right now--Ron’s made several inquiries, only to be met with solid denials, ranging from the I’m-takens to the I-would-go-with-you-but-someone’s-already-askeds. (They probably wouldn’t, and it makes the whole thing no less awkward.)

Ron rearranges the papers on his desk again. Harry’s out doing field work (lucky bastard), and the office is quiet without him. No one to talk with, and no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to say, “No, Ron, you’ve already asked them,” or tell him to get back to work. Someone will come around to check on him eventually, but he still hasn’t taken his lunch break yet, and it’s not like he can focus on work right at the moment. He might as well go downstairs to see Hermione.

Hermione will know what to do--she might act like she doesn’t want to give Ron any advice, or that he should do these things himself, but she likes being needed and she might know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who still doesn’t have a date yet. And since it’s not exactly the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s busy season, despite Hermione’s enthusiastic workaholic tendencies, she’ll have time to see him today, if not now (Ron’s comfortable betting a galleon or two on her having not taken her lunch break yet either). Ron stuffs his hands into his pockets and whistles as he walks to the elevator, which solicits a bemused look from Emmeline Vance walking the other way.

Hermione is, in fact, in her office, but she’s not alone. Dean Thomas is sitting across from her; he looks unsurprised to see Ron but does not get up.

“Oh, good, you’re here, Ron,” says Hermione. “Dean was just telling me that he’s still looking for a date to the ball.”

“You and me both,” says Ron. 

Dean looks back at Ron, as if waiting for him to elaborate. What else is there to say, though?

“Do you want to go with me?”

“Oh,” says Ron. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great,” says Dean, finally getting up from the chair, smiling brightly at Hermione, and clapping Ron on the shoulder before heading out. “I’ll owl you, yeah?”

* * *

Ron hadn’t expected his problem to be fixed that easily, and no amount of Hermione acting like she absolutely knows that Ron was going to ask for her help is going to stop him from acting smug about not having to ask her. Especially because George has already referred to him “dating Ginny’s castoffs” (and Ron is betting that Harry told Ginny who told him about it)--Ron deserves to be happy with himself, even if this really was all Dean’s doing. He’d been an attractive enough prospect for Dean, even if they’re only going as friends.

Well, Ron assumes they’re going as friends. He’s known Dean since they were eleven and Dean had tried to explain those weird muggle pictures that don’t move, and those weird muggle sports that Ron still doesn’t understand. There’s never been anything between them; why should there be something now, just because they were both desperate for a date? But when Ron tries explaining this, Hermione gives him her best condescending look; George ignores him, and Ginny straight-up laughs. 

At least Harry’s with him in the puzzlement, but it feels almost like a copout considering he’s still in his happily-ever-after with Ginny. But Ron can’t really be too mad about that; they’re happy, and Harry has even less experience than Ron does at attending mandatory dances with friends, as friends. And Dean’s owl about when he’ll pick Ron up is perfectly cordial and friendly, not signed with love or written on perfumed parchment, and no reminders to bring condoms. It’s not suggestive of anything other than friendliness, so when Hermione tells Ron to take things more seriously, Ron is perfectly justified in saying that he’s doing just that.

* * *

Dean shows up by floo at Ron’s flat exactly on time, just as Ron’s straightening the collar on his dress robes. They’re a nice blue, no ruffles and no clashing with his hair; he looks quite good in the mirror as Dean gets up from the fireplace and dusts himself off.

Ron will take that praise of himself back, looking at Dean now. He looks neat and presentable, but Dean looks spectacular. His dress robes are smart, black with white trim, sleek and modern and probably tailored to fit him. He’s always been athletic, but even in the days when they’d play casual Quidditch together all the time Dean’s body never looked this good, his muscles never so well-defined and his limbs so well-proportioned. And that feels like so long ago, even though it was what, six or seven years? He offers Ron his arm. 

“You look good,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

“Thanks,” says Ron. “You do too.”

It’s snowing, but they’re outside only just long enough to apparate together near the entrance to the Ministry, for a few snowflakes to land in Dean’s hair but already nearly all melt by the time they get in. Ron almost doesn’t have time to think about brushing them out of Dean’s hair, and definitely doesn’t have time to think about thinking about the fact that he’s thinking about that.

The entrance hall is decorated with ice sculptures, the floors and ceilings shining brightly like they’re on the inside of a snowflake. It’s a little more understated than usual, but that’s not a bad thing. They pass Harry and Ginny on the way in, surrounded by Ginny’s quidditch fans, and there’s no point in trying to get a word in until later. Ron manages to make sure Kingsley, Dawlish, and most of the senior aurors see that he’s there with a respectable date before Dean drags him around to say hello to the rest of the Muggle Relations Department (many of whom are Ron’s father’s old colleagues, and once again Ron is quite thankful that his father is retired and he does not have to run into his parents at this kind of function). Ron’s talking to the middle-aged witch who’d replaced Perkins after his retirement (he thinks her name is Lochan, but he’s not 100% sure and he hadn’t heard either her or Dean say it) when Dean slips away, returning a few moments later with drinks for the two of them, something mixed with firewhiskey. Ron is just about to finally get away from discussions about Dean’s work when the orchestra begins to tune and a hush falls over the crowd as everyone clears the dance floor.

The traditional first dance belongs to the highest ministry officials and their guests--Kingsley and his date, a foreign wizard neither Ron nor Dean knows but Hermione later tells them works for the Norwegian Ministry; Dawlish and his girlfriend; Percy and his date; the same officials who do the first dance every year and whose names and positions Ron should probably know by now. Ron shifts on his feet, suddenly conscious that he and Dean will have to get on the dance floor sooner or later, and his dancing skills have not improved much since he was fourteen. (At least this year, his parents aren’t here.)

The first dance ends, and Neville’s grandmother is the first one out on the dance floor--taking with her Ron’s Auntie Muriel. His blood runs colder than the ice sculptures, colder than a river frozen through. He cannot let her catch sight of him. 

“You want to make a break for it?” Dean whispers.

Ron blinks.

“Unless you really like dancing…”

His tone is teasing; he’d been the one who’d listened the most to Ron’s complaints back in fourth year when Seamus had been too excited about having a date and Harry had been bogged down with Triwizard stuff and Neville had been excited, after all.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Dean takes Ron’s hand in his--it’s warm, Ron thinks, as they make their way against the current of the crowd as people head toward the dance floor. The ballroom is warm already, but he doesn’t mind; his hand grasps Dean’s tighter. They weave through the onlookers on the outskirts, more hesitant to dance, and past the few still hanging around the food and drinks (good idea, to beat the crowds). No one is sitting at the tables, so they move past those and back out into the entrance hall. 

There are other people milling around, who had never made it into the ballroom or who had stuck close to the door, and a few Ron recognizes from school or work. Dean makes a beeline for Seamus, who is talking with Ernie Macmillan near the fountain. 

“Took you long enough to escape,” says Seamus. “Damn, Weasley; thought you’d have ditched this loser already.”

“He took the chance to avoid his aunt and get out with me,” says Dean.

Not that Ron had a retort ready on his mouth, but he feels as if he’s being talked past, for a second, as if Seamus and Dean are talking about something else. They’re looking at each other like they’re both trying to get the other to shut up, like Bill and Charlie used to do sometimes. Ron coughs.

Ernie pulls him aside and speaks in a hushed tone. “Are you, or are you not besotted, Weasley?”

“What?” says Ron, his volume considerably louder.

“Oh, honestly,” says Ernie. “You were holding Thomas’s hand. And the way you were looking at him--that is to say, if I may presume--was with quite more than friendly affection.”

What are they, a blind item in  _ Witch Weekly _ ’s gossip column? (Not that Ron reads that regularly, but when he was young and bored and his mother had old back issues laying around, he might have glanced at them once or twice.) And what the hell does it matter? Ron’s Dean’s date to the ball--just as friends, he’d said to Hermione, but what the hell does Ernie know?

“That’s none of your business,” Ron hisses.

“Oh ho,” Ernie says triumphantly, pointing to Ron.

Ron rolls his eyes. Dean and Seamus seem to have resolved whatever issue they were trying to not talk about in front of Ron and Ernie, luckily for them, because Ron’s grabbing Dean away anyway.

“Come on. We need more drinks.”

Dean does not complain. Nor does he ask what Ron and Ernie were talking about. Nor does he let go of Ron’s hand until Ron stops by a table that hadn’t been there when they’d walk through the entrance hall before, with mulled wine and fruitcakes set out on it. It’ll do.

“Ron,” says Dean. 

“What?” says Ron.

Dean points up. Above them is a sprig of mistletoe, suspended below the ceiling like the candles at Hogwarts always had been. They could avoid it; the Ministry would never put magical mistletoe at an officially-sanctioned event, and no one’s looking at them. They could, but--Dean is still holding his hand, looking straight into Ron’s eyes. It’s pretty hot that they’re the same height, actually. And before Ron even realizes he wants to kiss Dean, he’s actually doing it. Dean tastes softly spicy, like the drinks they’d had earlier. And--he’s kissing Dean; Dean is kissing him; this isn’t just going together as friends.

(Is this what Hermione meant? Ron isn’t going to ask about that.)

When they break apart, Dean’s grinning. Ron might be too; at least Dean doesn’t seem discouraged by whatever expression he’s making.

“The mistletoe’s still there,” says Ron.

Dean kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Even Ron's going to get a little more emotionally intelligent as he grows up.


End file.
